Return of the Living Dead may have been the first zomedy ever. It was as far I’m concerned anyway. An off the rails and completely over the top parody homage that had the pedigree of being written by the guy that penned “Night of the Living Dead” and directed by the guy who wrote “Alien”. A very nostalgic movie for me, and an all-around favorite to just about any horror fan that I know of. Which brings me to the question of “Did the sequel that came three years later fair as an acceptable follow up?”

I’ve learned a couple of things about part 2 that I didn’t know. It wasn’t originally written as a sequel to “Return of the Living Dead”. Ken Wiederhorn wrote the original screenplay as a completely unrelated story, and elements of the first film were added as tie ins to turn it into a sequel. Also the music score on the DVD version is gonna be different than what would have been on the original theatrical and VHS versions, mainly due to licensing problems. I didn’t mean to geek out with the moment of what would be perceived by some as useless trivia just now, but if anyone would care about it other than me, it would be you guys. I genuinely really love this film, for one primary reason. It may not hit all the marks of the original, but it’s the last one in the series to attempt to replicate the feel of it. The future installments in the series like part 3 are much darker with very little humor if any, and parts 4 and 5 may only have been exercises in commerce to capitalize on Romania’s cost effective filmmaking industry. So what I’m saying is that part 2 is by far the best sequel.

It begins with the barrels of the corpses with the Trioxin gas being transported by army cargo truck, and two barrels fall off and end up under a bridge at a creek close to a cemetery. Sliding them a little further up off the tailgate with some better bungee straps could have prevented all this, but I resign logic for the sake of horror on several occasions, so I have no reservations about buying into this one too. Three boys from a nearby housing development find them, and the only smart one, Jesse, leaves while the other two get exposed it. Jesse is a cool and capable little kid, with a sister named Brenda. Their last name is Wilson, which has to be a nod to Clu Gulager’s character from the first one. The Trioxin gets released into a nearby cemetery and the brain eating carnage ensues. They hold up in the house with the help a cable guy played by a pre Twin Peaks Dana Ashbrook, and the absolute best sequel nod ever is that we get Thom Matthews and James Karen back as two guys that get exposed to the Trioxin again, but as completely different characters. Oh yeah, we also get the Tarman zombie back, played by the exact same guy as before. This one is more of a straight up comedy than the first, but still has the same charm.

I’m probably not going to motivate anyone reading this to see part 2. More than likely, you’ve seen it. Albeit, it may have been a while. Watch it again as a palette cleanser to the SyFy installments that may be lingering in your most recent memories. After all, this series gave us the trope of zombies eating brains, sending more cops and paramedics, and head shots being just a waste of ammo.